


Exhaustion

by BelowBedlam



Series: Poetry for Interstellar Blitz [8]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:49:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9827270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelowBedlam/pseuds/BelowBedlam
Summary: The intro for ME3, pretty much.Z and Garrus...do the thing they do. But a little more, because the stakes have been raised and that puts shit into perspective. SFW. Maybe not SFF (safe for feels).





	

Earth is burning, Palaven is burning, the Reapers are here, and sometimes Garrus finds himself with his Commander. They sit on her bed, her hair is down and she’s wearing comfy looking clothes, and they play the Citadel pop music station just to learn the songs. Zisys still doesn’t know any of them (Garrus knows now she lied to him that first night at Chora’s Den) but she can and does hum along to the song they had sex to that night. She doesn’t know that it’s That Song, but he does. He remembers everything about it; it was a moment for him, and he’s fine that it wasn’t for her, that she comes to him so much later. Right now is what matters, and he wouldn’t be her with her right now if she didn’t want him here; she could be with Vega who she lets call her Lola, or the reporter woman he doesn’t quite trust but Zisys definitely likes, or meek Specialist Traynor who definitely likes _her_ , or hell, Wrex is back on board. 

But they’re here, together.

Garrus had been ready to accept their night together before the suicide run as just that. One night. He hadn’t expected to survive and when they had, as usual, things didn’t stop to let him catch his breath and she slipped through his grasp. But they always seem to find each other. 

“You’re staring, Vakarian.” She pulls him from his thoughts, and he _is_ staring. She’s gorgeous. And her soft clothes- pajamas -turn her from savior of the galaxy and baddest of the bad-asses into a pretty woman with bright red hair and a tendency to frown at random things. Like the pillow. Or her clock. Or the green stalk of vegetable she’s munching on. Celery does not look tasty.

“Sorry,” he says, even though she told him to “quit all that damn apologizing” years ago.

“What you thinkin’ bout?” She says instead of chastising him, flopping back on her pillows.

“How I got here,” he says truthfully, following suit. Humans are just...really into soft shit. Even the hard ones. These pillows are awesome, and they smell like what she puts in her hair. “With you.”

“Uh...through the door?” She snorts, pushing the rest of her celery stalk in her mouth. “Ah,” she adds when he doesn’t do his obligatory chuckle. “Okay. Well, I’m tired, Vakarian.”

Garrus stiffens. “I didn’t mean-”

“I’ve cheated death three times, you know. Saren- whatever he’d become by the end- should have killed me. I shoulda stayed dead when I actually died. And then I should have died on that collector base.” She pauses to swallow her food. Her soft skin runs over his rough exterior when she stretches her arms and yawns; she lets her hand rest, palm-up, on his chest plate. “When you ran the fire squad on that base, that second time, your radio fucked up for a little bit.”

“I remember,” Garrus says. “Couldn’t get in contact for a couple minutes.”

“It fucked me up,” she admits, looking at the ceiling. “More than I want to ever admit. And you had Tali with you, and I couldn’t get to either of you, and I thought ‘well fuck. Fuck this and fuck everything, I want to die if they die. I don’t want to cheat death if I can’t see them again, just let me go.’ That’s the most dangerous thing I’ve thought in a long time, and I been tired since that moment. Exhausted.”

The radio plays the kind of moseying, trance-like music you hear at the dens where you smoke and watch painted dancers writhe under a blacklight, and everything slows to a crawl. Garrus looks over at Zisys and she’s still staring hard at the ceiling, frowning. His heart is thundering in his chest and she should be able to feel it thump-thumping against her knuckles.

“This is where you take the hand I’ve so graciously lain on your chest and say something,” she murmurs after a while, flexing her fingers.

“Shit.” Garrus weaves their hands together best her can, and squeezes. “I’m sorry I make you tired.”

Zisys sputters. “Goddamn it, Garrus-”

“I love the way my name sounds when you say it,” he says quickly, “when you call me Garrus. And I love the way you carry your hand cannon. Your favorite gun even though you could kill _so much_ easier with the-”

“- _Hell_ no, I won’t hear slander against my baby,” she laughs. “Not even from you. Shut that shit down right now.”

“No slander.” Garrus brings her hand to his cheek. Then he tries his best to kiss it gently. “Best I can do without lips.” He does it again when she only makes a funny noise in her throat.

“You do just fine without lips.” She slips out of his grasp and gets up on her knees, leaning over him. Her hair tickles his face until she pulls it all behind her shoulders. She lowers herself until her lips press against where his should be. “Now if _I_ didn’t have lips, we’d have some issues.”

Garrus laughs, boldly pressing down on the small of her back so she lays against him, all of that softness and warmth and weight and the gust of her breath on the side of his face. She’s a dense, small woman- heavy like a boulder but her feet only reach to his knees.

“You don’t know what you do to me, Zisys,” he says, curling his hand over her hip.

She shifts against him. “Do I make you tired?” Her voice sounds like she’s falling asleep, truly.

Spirits, if only she knew. _I love you like they do in those romance novels that I definitely didn’t use for courtship research. I love you like the poems say. You could have Wrex’s scent on you right now and I’d still love you._

_....but I’m glad you haven’t been with Wrex today. Glad it’s just me._

“Exhausted,” he agrees simply, closing his eyes.


End file.
